Needy Students: The Ultimate Motivator
This week’s theme at Engineer Blogs is motivation and, if you can’t tell from my late post, I’m motivated to work on other things right now. My discussion on this topic is highly linked to a previous Theme Week on Deadlines. In that post, I discussed how I toss in procrastination and deadlines, and mix it with pressure and a dash of biting-off-more-than-you-can-chew and come out in reasonable shape (when it’s all over). GMP had a comment that she worked in a similar fashion, so I was somewhat relieved to find out I wasn’t the only one. When it comes down to it, I think I’m most motivated by not wanting to let other people down. I’d like to think that I’m the person that comes through 10 times out of 10 (SHAFT!). That doesn’t mean I’m always successful (hence my recent proposal rejection) but in the context of coming through in the end, I’m…
Getting started is hard to do
I have a confession to make: I’m a recovering perfectionist. In high school, I was able to breeze through most of my classes. I could procrastinate and still manage to do really good work, even if I didn’t manage to start my homework until the morning it was due. I started taking university classes in high school, and this was only marginally more difficult…I could often get by with starting things the night before. And then I went to a big name college, and found out that I couldn’t procrastinate at all. My perfectionism became a problem in college. Deadlines became terrifying…and still are. It turns out that procrastination is a sign of perfectionism, along with several other signs. People don’t like to start things that they are afraid they can’t do, well, perfectly. I didn’t know I was a perfectionist, however, until I had kids and found out that they were…
Procrastination, to the Nth Power
For those of you who follow me @profgears, you probably have already seen the demotivator to your left [photo credit]. It’s probably my favorite demotivational poster. In fact, if a certain DrWife is reading this, that would be a very nice new office gift. But I digress… As part of Deadline Theme Week here at Engineer Blogs, I thought I would talk about how I deal with procrastination, deadlines, perfectionism, and biting off more than you can chew (the Big Four). All four of these things work in tandem for me and it’s basically the only way I know how to get stuff done. I always bite off more than I can chew. Whether it is agreeing to service within the university, professional societies, or self-pressure, I always have stuff to do. And, like most people, I get distracted by the slightest…. … sorry, student just distracted me (actually true!).…